Saturday, 29th September, 2018

I would love this so very much.
Actually, I've always thought that a tweaked version of D&D 4E could make a great grid-based XCOM-style game.
Pillars of Eternity isn't 4E but it kind of is. However, it's not exactly turn based, though you can set auto-pause pretty aggressively.

Thursday, 27th September, 2018

I spend a decent amount of time on it last night and this morning. I'm enjoying it for the most part, but I must admit that I'm getting reeaaaalllllly tempted to dial the combat difficulty down to 'easy' (that tree-bear thing can go suck a fireball). I've never been too hot on isometric CRPGs for some reason, and I wish that they'd just made things turn-based as I'm pretty sure that's what's actually running under the hood anyway.
Here was my strategy that seemed to work:
I tried around 5 or 6 times when my party first got there. I think I was levels 2 & 3 and I came close once but mostly got slaughtered. I came back with a level 3 or 4 Amira and the Magus guy, buffed up and was able to take it down. It has DR10, so it took hitting it with a raging barbarian, shocking grasps and inflict wounds while Valerie and my main character tanked it. I used mirror-image, mage armor, shield, shield of faith and fight defensively on my fighter/wizard and shield of faith + tower shield + fight defensively ...

Thursday, 6th September, 2018

Urgh, that’s…not appealing to me. I think that’s on-par with Shadowrun, though. Which is another game where people spend an inordinate amount of planning for combat.
I’ll agree that the Witcher books aren’t great (though they’re not terrible, either). They get better as the series goes on, and I like the distinctly Eastern European philosophizing and governmental cynicism.
This all means they you’re usually looking at a minimum of four separate rolls per successful attack. At times this feels slow and clunky, but when things are flowing well it adds to the tense atmosphere and gives every move a sense of gravity.

Tuesday, 5th June, 2018

The word DENT does not mean an actual dent. It's just like any weird martial maneuver that for some reason can only be done once per day. (4th edition had this everywhere.)
It would certainly feel a little weird if the shield had an arbitrary limit on how often it can be used.
It certainly is weird. This article even gives such things a name: Dissociated Mechanics.

Sunday, 13th May, 2018

I wouldn’t expect it to be particularly controversial to say that different systems work better with different types of campaign.
The core concept of CoC is that the party are investigators - they are a group of folks trying to make sense of weird events cause by cultists and horrors from beyond etc etc etc.
This shapes both the narrative and the mechanics, with plenty of rules for searching out clues and a system for determining whether the characters crack under the mental strain caused by the horrors they face.
You certainly could just drop the players in s fleshed our city where spooky things are waiting to be uncovered, but what if the players decide they want to become bank robbers and ignore the creepy things?
At that point you either spring creepy things on them anyway and force them into a more typical investigation, or you’re playing a game where half the rules are wasted and the others are having to be tinkered with in order to fit the new direction.
If you’re running a sandbox...

I wouldn’t expect it to be particularly controversial to say that different systems work better with different types of campaign.
In some cases, no. It's the specific claim that some work better in sandboxy campaigns that struck me as odd.
The core concept of CoC is that the party are investigators - they are a group of folks trying to make sense of weird events cause by cultists and horrors from beyond etc etc etc.
(snip)
If you’re running a sandbox game of Elite, however, you’re unlikely to run into this problem. As the review says, both the narrative conceit (you’re space adventurers! Go adventure!) and the mechanics (character and equipment flexibility, broad application of rules for different situations) lend themselves to a game where the players can genuinely go where they want and do what they want.
Ok, so in CoC you're a group of "investigators" and in Elite you're a group of "adventurers". That's a rather slim distinction. Especially because in CoC the name "investigator" ...

There are some that work best with fairly tight stories, and others that are better when people can freely roam.
You keep saying this as if it's obvious, or common knowledge, but the claim needs to be substantiated.
Off the top of my head, mystery games like Tales From the Loop and ​Call of Cthulhu are examples of systems where the GM is unlikely to just drop you in a world and let you get on with it. There will generally be a pre-defined goal or weird thing for you to investigate.
With Elite and other sandbox-ey games, you can create an enjoyable campaign by giving your players a gentle slap on the bum to get them out of the gates, and then allowing them to drive where the narrative is going.
Um...ok.
But how are the games actually different? Let's say you're right about Call of Cthulhu: Why is that the case? Is it the mechanics of the game? The example adventures? The genre? The type of people who want to play Lovecraftian horror? Because a sandbox would simply be too terri...

Saturday, 12th May, 2018

Some RPGs are suited to telling a tight story, and some work best in a sandbox where players can explore and adventure as they please.
I'm still trying to figure this out. How are some RPGs more suited to sandboxing? Is it simply because players can travel to any one of numerous star systems, "jumping" from one to the next, or is it a reference to something deeper?

Tuesday, 6th March, 2018

Luckily, two of the cons where they'll be showing it off are within about 25 minutes of my house.
How very convenient.
We made a day drive out to Origins last year and I was considering it (Wrath & Glory) before but now it's looking more like I need to work out a way to hoof it out there.

Saturday, 17th June, 2017

I must admit, I'm not really familiar with VtM and it's setting, so when I was skimming the PDFs the ISIS stuff in the playtest scenario kind of made me do a double-take. I get that some people want something more real-world-ey but to be honest it puts me off.
Different people come to roleplaying for different things, I suppose.
Emphasis added. Yeah, that's the thing. NWoD distanced itself from the real world and there are a lot of people who like that style better. However, there are a lot of people, who as you put it "want something more real-world-ey", like me. I think that was always an important part of WoD, the strong real-world connections to mythologies, subcultures, events and so on and I'm happy they want to do it. Yeah, those things will push some buttons for some people and sure there will be missteps, but still, I like it and also there are plenty of games for more distanced settings and playstyles, if you don't want "real-world baggage" in your rpg.

Monday, 5th June, 2017

I would say there are a few things that separate even a grid-based RPG from a boardgame. The biggest, perhaps, is that RPGs give you much bigger scope for non-obvious solutions - dropping a chandelier on a foe rather than attacking them, or stealing some guard uniforms and trying to bluff your way through the dungeon. I wouldn't attempt to score a few extra points in Settlers of Catan by infecting my sheep with mange before trading them away, however, and even in semi-RPGs like Mice & Mystics you're still expected to stick to the conventional actions in the book.
As I said, there's a chance this may become less established once the full game comes out, but for now it feels more you're choosing from a list of options each turn rather than deciding what to do and then working out how that best fits in with the rules. This isn't a bad thing - the battle was still enjoyable - but it does feel different.
On the thought of turns, a big part of it was the turn structure being divided up into sep...